In late 2021, the Alliance for Research on East Asia (AREA) Ruhr launched an annual event called “AREA-Tag” (or AREA Day) which seeks to explore traces of East Asia in North Rhine-Westphalia (“Auf den Spuren Ostasiens in NRW”) and to introduce them to a general audience.
In 2025, the “AREA Day 2025 – 80 Jahre Kriegsende in Ostasien” (The 80th anniversary of the end of the war in East Asia) took place on 17 May with the NS Documentation Centre in Cologne as its venue, where the final exhibition of the project “The Third World in World War II” has been hosted from 8 March to 1 June. For the occasion of the project’s completion, the exhibition, which has been on display at more than 60 locations in Germany and Switzerland, included artistic reflections on the impact of World War II from Africa, Asia and Oceania.
The event itself was comprised of an exclusive guided tour through the Asia chapter of the exhibition and an organized roundtable with AREA Ruhr members to discuss why the 80th anniversary of the end of the war in East Asia is a key topic for understanding today’s political, economic and social developments in the region in terms of historical politics and the culture of remembrance.
The guided tour through the exhibition was conducted by Karl Rössel (curator of the exhibition) from Recherche International e. V. who offered valuable insight into perceptions of World War II, focussing on the impact of the Japanese invasions in China, Korea, the Philippines and Indonesia as well as on the role of the Royal Indian Army during the war. Participants were also given an introduction to the art section of the exhibition which featured several artistic reflections of World War II in East Asia.
Afterwards, AREA Ruhr members Prof. Christine Moll-Murata (VR China & Taiwan), Dr. Florian Pölking (Republic of Korea) and Dr. Anke Scherer (Japan) came together at a moderated roundtable (Dietmar Ebert) to discuss why the 80th anniversary of the end of the war in East Asia is a key topic for understanding today’s political, economic and social developments in the region in terms of historical policy and the culture of remembrance.
AREA Ruhr expresses its gratitude to Karl Rössel and Recherche International e. V. for their kind and constructive cooperation in setting up this event and providing insight into their exhibition. A full online version of the exhibition is available on the project’s homepage.